Seven songs in now and I would definitely have to say I'm enjoying this quite a bit more than any of the Dream Theater I've heard, but the vocals are still not doing a thing for me. The guitar work (is most of this Matheos? don't know the history of this band) is fantastic, easily my favorite part.

Wrapped up with "The Road Goes On Forever" which represents exactly what I don't like about this sort of thing - really earnest and borderline cheese lyrics, showy percussion that reminds me of new age music, and a just general too smooth vibe.

Listening to that Fates Warning album makes me nostalgic for a time when metal was more commercially relevant - in particular that early '90s period when stuff like Queensryche, Kings X, and Rush could be commonly overheard blaring from college dorms.

doing fates warning now. i don't really have a lot to say--i'll make it through the whole thing but i really dislike this type of music. i would like to point out that the drummer sucks though--he is basically intentionally making the songs choppy and grooveless.

Nah. It's not on spotify and like I said, trying not to just download musics. Will maybe listen to one of the two records they do have on spotify but considering i am catching up as it is, it doesn't seem like a big deal.

There's so many sub-genres in metal its going to be impossible to like everything , that's why I think its better to not stick to albums in the same genre when choosing (not that glenn did this, but you know what I mean).

Aside from glenn, is anyone other than me familiar with any of HIM's previous albums? I definitely thought that Venus Doom was an unquestionably metal album (if a rather poppy, gothy metal album) but this does sound like a departure to me so far. Also, it sounds like crap so far (and I actually enjoy radio emo).:P

(My girlfriend is a big HIM fan. We sang "Wings of a Butterfly" as a karaoke duet once.:P)

ok, fates warning. just going to have to judge this off the one song i seem to be able to stream on grooveshark. inoffensive i guess? def hits the same queensryche hate vibes mentioned upthread, although it is better than that horseshit. idk, i get it, but not really for me, not getting as much of a prog-metal dream theater vibe as other people are, which is good, this just sounds like mainstream relaxing metal for metallers stuff. not bad at that tho. not running out to buy it in the near future tho.

hate the drum sound here on the intro to soft white throat, but that is not really their fault, its a shit drum sound that i hear on lots of stuff from the era.

vocals sound cartoony to me? kind of a fake evil going on here, maybe ive just been bent by listening to peste noire too much.

ok stutter vocal was irritating, but the post part here is better than anything else so far. still some sort of clinical separation in the recording that is distracting from whats going on. theres no density here - which is kind of frustrating, because if there was, i would prob be digging this. song screams for heavy, and there isnt any here.

so uh what the hell is going on here (bestial bitch)? now its all halfassed motorheady, but with scratchy doubletracked vocals? again, this could be kind of great but its like this band is listening to a lot of stuff and not really making good choices about how to put it all together.

ok now its prey and its the best thing so far, by far. hated the intro, but i could listen to this (less the DUMB mindless self indulgence synth stab noise shit going on in sometimes). and now, its all mediocre synth bridge which sucks a lot. and now its back to the song, but ehhhhh. also that drum thing that just happened was crap.

this seems to be a band that could be good but is too busy fucking around outside of what they can actually do well (which given my U1v3r and SGM and whatever leanings seems like a strange thing to criticize but).

cant help but feel that for a second there i heard a band that might be pretty good, but is too distracted.

track 5 seems like the best thing so far despite my evanescence puke reaction. still, the guitar is just so LAME, and i dont need like shredder stuff going on, but can this dude (dudes?) actually play beyond a simple functional level? i am now to the part where there is a dual guitar lead and still, this is hitting me as dumbed down "metal guitar", theres nothing really interesting going on here.

ok so the crowley cover just started and i am either going to be super stoked or really pissed. just started to kind of obsessively revisit this song a couple weeks ago and i am kind of in the zone with it at the moment.

ok fuck you guys I HATE THIS A FUCKING TON. taking a legitimately creepy song and dressing it up in your crap arglebargle voice with a bunch of pitch shifting and then some badly executed half time blastbeats turns it into some clown shoes LOOK AT ME I AM SPOOKY garbage. this is tex avery moustache twisting evil. yuck.

actually, first song has some kind of amazing pop-metal nostalgia going on for me. throat screamy thing out of nowhere is pretty cool, and doomy monk chorus in the middle is pretty cool. surprised, but theres something going on here that works for me. and this is def a pop informed metal prob hard rock album, but they are sneaking in some cool shit here, and doing decent pop shit as well (on the second track now, which is like some sort of popjizz explosion for the most part, but i am digging it.)

if i was going to draw a totally unsolicited compare/contrast thing here, cradle of filth is positioned as a metal band sneaking in pop, and HIM is some sort of pop/rock/poppunk thing sneaking in metal, but these dudes are making me buy it and COF sounds like a bunch of teengrabbing bullshitters.

third song is semi-awesome pretty pop but fails on the metal side so far.